Employees of businesses routinely incur individual expenses, commonly referred to as “Travel and Entertainment” (T & E) costs. These expenses usually relate to airfare, hotels, client lunches, seminars, transportation, and many others. Meticulous recording and tabulation of these expenses is required for monitoring the costs of doing business and for income tax purposes.
Typically, businesses monitor T & E costs by requiring their employees to tally these expenses on a daily basis. The employee is usually required to gather all receipts and to report the expenses by category on a summary form. This summary form may be created manually but it is typically created using commercially available computer software such as a spreadsheet program. The receipts are then submitted to the accounting department along with the summary form. The summary form with all receipts attached is typically referred to as an “expense report.” If the employee used personal monies or personal credit to fund any purchases, the accounting department would review the expense report for accuracy and would reimburse the employee the dollar amount.
Receipts for purchases range in size from small ticket stubs to full size sheets of paper. As a result, businesses typically standardize the expense reporting process by requiring their employees to attach each receipt to a standard size sheet of paper by using glue or tape. In the case of small receipts, several may be attached to one sheet of paper. There are several reasons for this practice. First, if needed, it allows the employee or the accounting department to be able to easily make photocopies of the receipts without having to handle each receipt separately. Second, it reduces the chances of misplacing the receipts while the expense report navigates the expense reimbursement process. Third, this practice allows the accounting department to audit each receipt without the inconvenience of having to handle loose receipts of many different sizes and shapes. Finally, once the accounting department processes the expense report, the summary form and the accompanying receipts can be conveniently stored in standard size filers or binders.
Several business forms and diaries have been devised which provide a diary for recording expenses combined with a pocket for storing tickets and receipts. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,338,068 of Arbach et al (1994) discloses an integrated expense summary form and receipt storage pocket. The complex form includes an area with a printed table for summarizing expense activities. The form can be folded into an envelope that can be used to store receipts. The envelope containing the receipts may then be submitted to the accounting department for processing.
Also, commercially available diaries for recording expenses are Dome® Publishing Co.'s products titled Dome® Expense Account Diary and Dome® Auto Mileage Log And Expense Records. Both are wire bound notebooks containing sheets with printed tables which are designed for recording individual expense related activities. Both products also include an open pocket for storing tickets and receipts.
None of the available forms and diaries is equally convenient for all aspects of the expense record keeping process and subsequent expense reimbursement process. All forms and diaries heretofore known suffer from a number of disadvantages:
The use of a pocket to store or retain receipts acts as a hindrance to the expense reimbursement process because it requires the accounting department to manually handle and sort individual receipts in order to verify that the employee has submitted all the required documentation with the expense summary. Manually handling each receipt increases the possibility that one may be damaged or misplaced.
The use of a pocket increases the possibility that receipts may be lost by the employee or by the accounting department if the pocket is not sealed correctly.
Submitting loose receipts to the accounting department impedes the photocopying process because each receipt must be handled individually.
Expense recording sheets, such as those included in the Dome® products, are not intended to be submitted to the accounting department as an expense report because they do not include a summary tabulation. Therefore, while these products can be used as expense diaries, they do not eliminate any of the steps required to create and submit a typical business expense report.
Diaries with only one pocket included, such as the Dome® products, are not intended to be submitted to the accounting department because were the pocket to be detached from the diary and submitted with an expense report the employee would no longer have a place to store the receipts recorded in the future.
Diaries, such as the Dome® products, are odd shaped and not designed for storage in standard size filers or binders.
The available forms and diaries do not easily complement the practice of attaching receipts to standard size sheets of paper.